ISBN-10: 0595440096:  ISBN-13: 978-0595440092

Publisher: iUniverse

Still Alice tells the touching tale of a middle-aged woman who is struck with Alzheimer’s.

I thought this novel was quite ironic. In the beginning Alice’s husband, John, is the one who loses his glasses. He turns the house upside down in an attempt to uncover them. Alice wonders how a smart scientist could possibly misplace a thing such as his own glasses? Little does she know a trip to the doctors will reveal her worst nightmare. 

It seems her family are smart individuals with her son, Tom, in his third year at Harvard Medical School with intentions on being a cardiothoracic surgeon.

Alice is no stranger to intelligence - herself a colloquium speaker and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Regularly she makes appearances and speeches but one day notices how her memory seems to be faltering

She notices a name on a list she once wrote who she does not recognize. Who is Eric? If it is who she thinks, Alice simply cannot place why she’d intended  to speak to him.

She decides these memory lapses are symptoms associated with the menopause. Yet as they progress with more frequency she can no longer just ignore them or put them down as menopausal.  

The doctor tells her some horrible news - it is very likely she has early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. John refuses to believe his wife has this incurable illness and demands the doctors do more tests. Alice herself though, gradually accepts this diagnosis and worries how to tell her three children. What will their reactions be? And how does she tell people at work? Will she eventually become too incapable to even do her job?

When she tells her children you can almost hear a pin drop. Nobody speaks and Tom sits “frozen with a fork full of frittata midway between his plate and mouth”.

When they do speak up, questions come in quick succession. More bad news is to come for Alice’s three children when she tells them the doctor said the disease is autosomal dominant. This meaning they have a fifty percent chance of also getting Alzheimer’s.   

Their children are horrified not only for their mother but for themselves.

To tell more is to give this story away so you really should read on for yourself. Be warned this is not a tale for the faint-hearted. It cuts deep inside you and leaves you aching for Alice. Lisa has really managed to conjure up a tale that is so believable and realistic.

Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease that eventually makes its sufferers almost as defenceless and vegetable-like as a baby until they cannot think, speak or eat for themselves. It is well known as the “long goodbye” and if you can read this tale without weeping you will soon understand why.  

We see how one able-minded woman of a young age (way too young to be afflicted with this terrible fate) gradually loses her mind.

The one thing that I found really upsetting is how Alice makes a questionnaire to herself of questions she knows answers to. For instance “where do you live?” over time she no longer knows and almost watches herself from afar as she loses her mind.

A very cleverly written story that offers an intimate portrait of how Alzheimer’s affects its victims. Something for everyone to read with up to $3 from the sale of this book going towards the Alzheimer’s Association. Prepare to be moved immensely.